About Us

Our Mission

Young Education Professionals’ mission is to connect and empower early-to-mid career professionals through knowledge, career and professional development programs bridging education policy, practice, and research. By doing this work, we are equipping tomorrow’s leaders to answer the toughest challenges in education today and into the future.

Our Vision

YEP envisions a future where professionals in every corner of the United States can access a premier national network of local chapters where people, ideas, and skills converge to foster tomorrow’s education leaders.

Our values

Young Education Professionals believes:

Education is a powerful lever of social change, instrumental in closing opportunity and achievement gaps among students.

Bridging policy, practice, and research is key to generating large-scale, sustained improvement in education.

We are answering a need voiced by early-to-mid career professionals for high quality resources to develop and advance their careers.

We are building a community where people can connect and forge strong professional and social ties.

Our History

The original Young Education Professionals (YEP) was founded in Washington, DC in the late 1990s by leaders such as Michael Petrilli (now President of Thomas B. Fordham Institute) and Jennifer Vranek (now Founding Partner of Education First Consulting). The group was phased out in the early 2000s.

In 2007, Kate Blosveren Kreamer (now Deputy Executive Director of Advance CTE) revived and re-launched the group with the next generation of young education leaders. The group called itself Young Education Professionals-DC (YEP-DC) and earned a strong reputation for connecting tomorrow’s education leaders online and via high quality, in-person events.

As YEP-DC members moved to other cities and the organization's reputation grew, as did interest in creating new YEP chapters. In spring 2012, YEP launched its expansion with new chapters in Colorado and New York City. The Bay Area, Birmingham, Boston, and Twin Cities chapters followed soon after. There are over 12,500 YEP members across all of the chapters. You can see a complete list of our chapters here.

YEP is a completely volunteer-run organization at both the local and national levels.